Feature
- Physics
A Spin through Space-Time
After 40 years of preparation, satellite Gravity Probe B is scheduled to launch next month and test the prediction that massive bodies, such as Earth, twist space itself as they rotate.
-
- Chemistry
The Nature of Things
An earth scientist's proposed alternative periodic table of elements is emblematic of the growing desire among scientists to recast this 130-year-old chart.
- Math
Best Guess
Economists are exploring the use of betting markets as tools for predicting the consequences of policy decisions by a government, corporation, or other institution.
- Anthropology
Erectus Ahoy
A researcher who explores the nautical abilities of Stone Age people by building rafts and having crews row them across stretches of ocean contends that language and other cognitive advances emerged 900,000 years ago with Homo erectus, not considerably later among modern humans, as is usually assumed.
- Earth
When Genes Escape
The focus of the debate over transgenic crops has changed from whether genes will escape to what difference it will make when they do.
-
Visionary Research
Scientists are debating why primates evolved full color vision and whether that development led to a reduced sense of smell.
- Physics
Hot Crystal
In seeming violation of one of the laws of physics, a new type of metal microstructure promises to lead to far more efficient incandescent light bulbs and also to boost the development of light-based microcircuits and heat-to-electricity generators.
- Earth
On Thinning Ice
Although some of Earth's glaciers seem to be holding their own in the face of global warming, most of them are on the decline, many of them significantly.
- Health & Medicine
Checkmate for a Child-Killer?
If a new generation of vaccines pans out, the days of rotavirus, which kills at least 450,000 infants and children every year by causing severe diarrhea, may be numbered.
- Animals
Leashing the Rattlesnake
Even in the 21st century, there's still room for old-fashioned, do-it-yourself ingenuity in experimental design for studying animal behavior.
- Planetary Science
After the Tragedy
NASA's plan to return the space shuttles safely to flight after the Columbia accident is coming under intense scrutiny.
